This is another thing I make every fall. I have been a little dissapointed with my usual recipe, which is good, but lacks volume and structure so the cookies just turned out flat and fell apart easily. I tried out this new recipe which included a lot more flour and the addition of baking powder. The pumpkin flavor isn't at strong, but they have the consistency I've been looking for and they are delicious. So if I ever gave you my old recipe for pumpkin cookies, try this one instead, I like it better.

1 ½ cup sugar
½ cup butter
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cloves
1 egg
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cup flour
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 pkg chocolate chips

Blend sugar and butter; add egg. Add remaining ingredients. 350 for 15-18 min.

     I have finally finished Kadens fish tank and it really turned out great, but something is causing the fish to keep dying.  All of the fish were the first to go but we mostly just used it as a holding tank for the goldfish when we use them to feed the bigger fish.  We had a crab in there that completely dissapeared and the only thing left is a frog. The fish tank was made out of an old TV that I had gutted everything from the inside then built a plexiglass tank to slide inside.  The power button for the TV is hooked up to a light inside so its like your turning on the TV and it turns on the light.  I put some whale fabric around the back and side and painted the right side blue where the light shines in so it makes everything kind of blue-ish when the light is on.

     You will see a recipe section on the menu where Allie will be posting her favorite recipes.  I am going to make it so you can view them in a printer mode with just text and print them off if you wish. When you first go to the Recipe section it will come up with a random recipe from the database and you can then choose a category or search for a recipe.  There is still some work to be done, so just be looking out for that.

    I have also completed the news archive section.  You will see a link just under the news heading that will link you to the archive page. From there, you can click on a certain month to view those entries or click on the year to see all of the posts within that year.

We are now in Autumn, my favorite season, and I always like to start it out by making a batch of these pumpkin waffles. I like to make a lot so I can freeze them and just reheat them whenever I want. I got this recipe from Teresa and I just love them.

Pumpkin Waffles

2 C flour                         1 T vanilla   
1 T cinnamon                 1 C pumpkin
½ tsp                             ½ C margarine, melted
2 T baking powder         4 egg yolks
1 T sugar                       4 egg whites, whipped stiff and saved out
½ tsp salt
1 ½ C milk

Place dry ingredients in a bowl, put wet ingredients in a separate bowl and blend. Beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add wet ingredients to dry. (May need to add more milk, almost ½ a cup.) When the wet and dry are blended, fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Put into a hot waffle iron, spread the batter around just a little so it is not so thick and cooks more evenly.

Mazda was supposed to call us in the morning to let us know if we could pick up our car. . . They never called. So I called them at 11:30 and was told the car was ready. We got the kids ready and drove to Murray once again to pick it up. Jared asked them if the issues had all been fixed and they said yes. So Jared drove it to his parents' house so he could look it over, the oil leak appears to have been fixed, but the loose bolt hadn't been touched.

So Jared called them up and they offered to fix it if we drove it back up there. Jared just yelled at them and then hung up. It's just a loose bolt so Jared's dad is going to fix it, but the whole point was that Mazda never tightened it enough the first time and was supposed to fix it after repeated visits but never did. At least the oil leak is fixed so hopefully we can sell the car before another issue pops up.

I know, this is a long one, I don't care if anyone reads it, I am mostly just venting frustration. If you ever buy a car from Mazda, you can certainly expect very poor service if you ever need to bring it in.

About a year after we bought our car we had to bring it in to the Orem Mazda for a check-engine light issue and we literaly had to go back 15 times until the problem was actually fixed. And our most recent issue I think has been the most frustrating.

We brought the car in to the Murray dealer to get a part replaced which they said wouldn't take very long, a day at the longest. So we just had them keep it there so they could get it done, they never called us with any updates so after a while I called and was told it was going to take a bit longer. After what seemed like a week, they called us and said they ended up having to do a lot more work which was all covered under warranty, but the car would be ready the next day. So the next day we drove to Murray to pick up the car, and when we got home we noticed the car was leaking huge amounts of oil. We had Jared's dad look at it to see if we could determine what was causing the leak, and they found a couple of loose bolts and a loose wire that wasn't plugged in to anything, so we knew we would have to take it back for them to fix again.

The annoying thing is that Murray is maybe an hour and a half round-trip and every time we drive there we have to have two people driving separate cars. So Jared's mom, Teresa, drove with me to drop off the car on Wednesday morning, I told them about the leak and the other issues and they said it would take a couple of hours, I told them I would be back at 5:30 to pick it up. Teresa then drove me home and the day went by, Jared had to get off work early so we could make it to the dealer by 5:30.

We get to the dealer and I go to the service desk and ask for our car, "Oh didn't you get my message? We couldn't see an oil leak so we put some dye in the oil and wanted to let it sit over-night." Apparently they had called Jared WHILE WE WERE DRIVING TO MURRAY, to say they wanted to keep it over-night, When they had the car all day for a job that was only supposed to take a couple of hours and they wait to call us while we are on our way to pick up the car.

I didn't want our trip to be a waist of time and money so I asked if we could just take our car and take it to the Orem Mazda since it was closer. They said that would be fine so we took our car and went home. Jared looked at the car when we got home and found that the only thing they did was plug in the loose wire. THEY HAD THE CAR ALL DAY! 

Sooo, Teresa drove with me the next morning to the Orem Mazda. I told them the issues and went home. A while after we were home Teresa called saying Murray Mazda had called her about some things and was trying to contact Jared. Jared called them back and was told that Orem Mazda was doing everything wrong and they needed his permission for them to drive the car to the Murray Mazda for repair. What...a...joke. Jared didn't trust them with the car, so Teresa was kind enough to drive me back to Orem to pick up the car and Jared was then going to meet me on the freeway so we could both go to Murray to drop it off.

When I picked up the car in Orem they at least acknowledged the car WAS leaking huge amounts of oil and thought they found the problem but said they would have to take out the whole engine to fix it, which Murray said was wrong. So we took it back to Murray.

Then around 4 the same day, since I hadn't gotten any update, I called them to see how things were going, they said they were doing a dye test right then and would call me back in a few min. 30 min later and no call, I called back again, they said they think they fixed it but would like to keep it over night to make sure. I said fine, and then he kept mentioning that this is why they wanted to keep it over-night in the first place and made it seem like it was my fault that all this time had been waisted. I can't believe these guys, anyway, after dropping off the car to Murray again, waisting lots of gas and Jared taking off many hours of work, we are now waiting to hear back from them and hoping that our car is finally fixed. And once we get it back we are putting it up for sale. Not because of the issues with the car itself, but because I don't want to take anymore crap from Mazda. I'm am so sick of it and will never buy another Mazda again.

I went to a yard sale today and am very happy with my find. I rarely go to yard sales, but it seems whenever I do I always come across something good, today it was this Little Tikes Family Kitchen with accessories. It only cost me $15 and is in great condition. I think Kairi will love it. :)

We bought a nice TV from my sister and her boyfriend but couldn't decide where to put it, in the end we chose to replace the playroom TV with this new one. Jared bought a mount for the wall and built a big shelf where everything else could sit. We didn't want any wires hanging down where the kids could get hurt or pull on them so Jared also installed an outlet and network plug near the ceiling. It turned out to be more work than expected though, the wall had a lot of insullation and we couldn't run the wires through it, so we ended up cutting out a long strip of drywall on the other side of the wall (We didn't want to ruin the paint in the playroom of corse) and ran the wires that way. Jared was very quick to repair everything and I love the changes.

I knew Kairi was tired but she wouldn't go to sleep when I put her in crib, she just wanted to play, so I let her play in the jumper for a bit while I took care of Kaden. I could hear her jumping and playing and she wasn't fussing, then it just got quiet. I went to check on her and she had fallen asleep, she lifted her head a little when I took a picture, but she was fast asleep, the sandman finally won her over. The same thing happened when Jared was watching her one evening, she was playing on her tummy and the next thing she is asleep.What a cutie.

Our front walkway was very uneven and Kaden was constantly tripping so we had it replaced. Our brother-in-law Jed did all the work and did a very nice job. We thought it would be cute to have the kids' hand prints in the concrete. Kairi was pretty easy to do, I was worried it wouldn't turn out very well since it's not very easy to keep her hand in a flat position for very long, but she did great. Kaden didn't like the idea of getting concrete on his hands so he put up a fight, but it turned out good too. After doing their hands and writing their name we thought we might as well do their footprints too.

I was out of the room for a few minutes and while I was gone, Kaden got in the pantry and took out a package of cookies and decided to help himself. What was so funny is that he just took at least one bite out of each cookie and then left them on a table. Good thing there were only 6 cookies left in the package.

We went to the cabin for the Labor Day weekend. Aside from the car breaking down on the way, it was a pretty nice break.